


five times daisy and coulson spent the night in a hotel

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5 Things, Developing Relationship, Episode Related, Established Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 20:31:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12660879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: What it says on the tin :)Written for the Cousy Rewatch event at johnsonandcoulson.com





	five times daisy and coulson spent the night in a hotel

1.

He looks different the next time she sees him, half an hour after they leave the pool.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

Skye knows him well enough to feel unconvinced.

Suddenly they are standing in the hallway of the motel, and Skye doesn’t know what to say.

“May is back,” she comments.

“Just talked to her.”

“Everything okay?” she insists.

He avoids the subject.

“The thing you talked about earlier? About leaving a present for Hydra. Can you show it to me?”

“Yeah, come in.”

They go to her room.

Skye can’t shake the feeling something has changed, something has shifted. Coulson is alternatively tense and distracted. He struggles to follow her explanation of the hack, and Coulson never struggles to follow her explanations. She knows there’s something he’s not telling her. But still it’s kind of nice, working together on it, figuring a way everything is connected, going back to the days they were looking into Cybertek, “nostalgic,uh?” Skye jokes. Even if she only really spent one day on her own, trying to think of a way to get away from Ward, to avoid being killed, to protect the hard drive (great job there, Skye), it felt lonely enough that now she’s happy to be back in a team - even if the team is her and Coulson working on a motel bed. Eventually the rest join them, Trip brings some more cookies for everyone, Coulson makes some useless inquires about getting a conference room (“this is not that kind of hotel” Skye warns him) and settles for some office supplies. It feels like the previous day was mostly a nightmare, except when she closes her eyes, of course.

 

2.

They still don’t have a proper plane and the cases keep piling. 

Two cases close together and Daisy figures that they can save a lot of time and money if they stay in town for the night. Daisy. She stills has trouble thinking of herself with that name. She repeats all over in her head to make up for the discomfort.

“At least we have a terrace,” Coulson says, walking out into the night.

Their rooms are connected so their terrace is too. Tiny, with barely any room for some sad plastic chairs. It’s normally Coulson and her and Mack, but Mack was needed on the base today.

“Yeah, it’s kind of nice,” she agrees, though it’s a clouded night, no stars. Still, some fresh air, some quiet after the day they’ve had… she’s grateful.

They still haven’t figured a cause for these few incidents - and at some point they gave up looking for gifted individuals to build a team, and now they are focused on damage control from people going through terrigenesis - without their knowledge, apparently.

Enough cases that it’s worrying, too few to draw anything other than very hypothetical conclusions. An ugly feeling at the bottom of her stomach tells Daisy she already knows what’s happening. She and Coulson are just looking for confirmation at this point.

Normally Coulson would be sharing a room with Mack but tonight he is alone. Normally he would retire almost immediately after a trying day. 

He looks tired (god knows Daisy is too) but for some reason he is lingering out here, in the ugly terrace.

“Night rituals have become a little… complicated,” he confesses.

Daisy doesn’t know what to say. It’s the first time he’s talked to her about his arm since it happened. At least directly (she remembers him asking her to drive Lola when they went to visit Cal, but he didn’t exactly asked with words). 

“Oh,” is all her stupid mouth manages to say. No, she wants to do better. “Do you need help with that?”

It breaks her heart just to imagine, how his life has changed so much just because her mother…

Coulson smiles a bit (like he can tell what she is thinking), shakes his head.

“It’s okay, I can handle it myself.”

The subtext being _he has to_. Which he doesn’t, but daisy understands that instinct too well. If it was the other way around she wouldn’t want to be a burden to those around her, especially Coulson. But it’s not the same, of course. It was her fault, in the first place, that he is like this. If only she had seen through Jiaying’s lies earlier… And it’s Coulson, he… well, he deserves better.

“Do you mind if I stay out here for a bit, too?” Daisy asks.

He nods.

“Thank you… Daisy.”

Her name like a deliberate afterthought.

It’s nice to see she’s not the only one having trouble with the change.

 

3.

She miscalculates and he does too.

Coulson made the mistake of thinking Daisy would be in the opposite building, and Daisy made the mistake of thinking he would stay in the Zephyr.

Instead she is stuck in this room until Coulson leaves here.

Only a thin wall separating them.

She feels like a little animal trapped, no options but to stay quiet and out of sight. 

She hears him set up the equipment. She knows this part all too well. Images of Coulson sitting at a window looking out, getting closer and closer to her every time. He couldn’t see her, but she has seen him every time. That’s unfair, she knows. But she’s not sure her resolve would hold if she lets Coulson catch up with her, if he sees her, if they talk. It must hurt him, Daisy knows, but that “hurt” is a lot better than the hurt that would come from having her around.

She could try to leave, but she’s not going to underestimate Coulson - he’s an excellent agent, it would sound his alarms. There’s no other choice but to wait it out, hope he leaves before he realizes the next room is occupied.

(And what if he realizes? Daisy’s mind keeps running scenarios, things she’d have to do if she gets caught - Coulson would never take her back to the team by force, she knows that, but the idea of him confronting her about it, the mere idea of him asking her to come back…)

She stills her body.

She is very good at keeping quiet. At going unnoticed.

( _but Coulson is very good at noticing you, hearing you even when you’re quiet_ )

She stays awake the whole night, listening for sounds from the other room. This is the closest she’s been to Coulson in months and at this point she has to ignore how much she misses him. It cuts through her, so she pretends she was always in half.

She hears him pace, go to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He doesn’t give up. 

Daisy knows he will, in time. Not because he’ll lose faith, and not because he’ll forget about her (if only, she thinks), but because he’ll understand that she is very intently not wanting to be caught up with. And Coulson, well, he always respects her choices, and he will respect this one too.

 

4.

She helps him settle in in his room. She does that with everyone, overbearing, worrying that what she does to protect them is not enough. Elena laughed at her and waved her away from her and Mack’s room, closing the door in her face in gentle friendly mockery. 

Coulson is more accommodating, which is natural.

Daisy is itchy, impatient. The place doesn’t even have a pool.

But it has them. All the people Daisy cares about.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love cheap motels,” she jokes. Coulson laughs a little too laugh. She guesses he’s just happy to be alive. “But I was hoping we could get home already.”

“Soon,” he says. “I promise.”

Everything on Earth feels heavier than up there, and more real. Space was light but it was… dangerous, you could never relax.

“Let’s hope there’s something good on tv,” he says.

He sits on one of the beds, at the edge of it, reaching for the remote.

Daisy wonders if that’s her cue to go.

She hovers.

Coulson flicks through a couple of channels, before finding a movie that looks barely interesting (from where she stands), and like it has just started.

“The Long Goodbye, that’s not bad.”

“You like detective movies.”

“Yeah.”

Daisy laughs. He should look uncool but he doesn’t. He’s never really looked uncool, as far as she’s concerned.

She knows she should leave, leave him alone. They could all probably use some privacy after all these months.

But for whatever reason she doesn’t want to.

Leave him alone.

Leave him.

Daisy doesn’t want to -

“Maybe you could stay and watch with me?” Coulson offers. She considers him from the door. Something about his tone is… weird. but not in a bad way. She arches her eyebrow just a bit. “There are snacks in the machine outside,” Coulson adds, tilting his head.

“Cool plan,” she replies. She’s not sure she gets his intent, though. “Do you want me to call the others or…?”

“If you want,” Coulson tells her. “But… is it okay if it’s just us?”

Daisy nods.

“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s _very_ okay,”

That makes him smile. He hides it a bit against his collar.

“I’m going to need money, though,” Daisy points out. “For the snacks.”

“Oh, right,” he says, chuckling nervously, fishing in his pockets for some coins.

Daisy hopes he doesn’t change his mind in the time it takes her to get some food.

 

5.

They don’t normally accept the whole five stars hotel package, but this time around the multi-agency security conference is spread over many days and it’s a lot more convenient than skulking back to a secret location to sleep on the Zephyr.

“And I kinda like these tiny bottles,” Daisy says, dangling one in front of Coulson.

He got them this stupidly luxurious suite. Well, for once they have the time to enjoy it. Kind of like a vacation, and when was the last time they went on vacation? Not since they’ve become partners, that’s for sure.

She likes seeing Coulson all relaxed, soft after sex and a shower, taking the tiny bottle of scotch from her hand. They mock fight for it until she falls lightly on his chest and he finishes the drink and somehow it ends up rolling to the carpet.

She likes him like this, wrapped in a soft robe, with that soft chest hair, and his soft cock. She smiles. She is not surprised she fell in love with Coulson ( _it’s Coulson_ , she probably started falling in love the minute she met him), but she is still a bit shocked how much she _likes_ him, like shallowly like him, like his body and stuff.

She runs one greedy hand over his abdomen, teasing the sensitive skin of his belly.

“I’d better order breakfast for tomorrow, in case we forget later,” he says.

“Mmm, good idea.”

She starts kissing his chest.

“I’ll order all your favorite things.”

“You’re my favorite thing,” Daisy says, just to see him blush.

He half-recovers.

“That may as well be, but I’m still ordering a ton of food.”

“I could just eat you,” she jokes, biting lightly on the spot above his collarbone.

“Watch it, Director,” he says. “That’s unfair bias towards one of your agents.”

She moves her mouth under his neck, chuckling softly.

“You smell amazing,” she says.

“Scented soap,” he replies. “Verbena… I think.”

She dips her head lowers and kisses his chest, inhaling the smell of his hair.

“Verbena?”

“It’s a… mmm… a herb… I think.”

She comes back up to his level, pressing her mouth to his. 

The light here is perfect, the color of the walls, the softness of the bedsheets (again, that word, soft, but Daisy likes having soft things, because her life tends to be anything but), she knows it’s just for one night, this is not real life, and she wouldn’t want it to be real life, but it’s pretty damn nice.

She rests her chin on Coulson’s shoulder.

“I don’t want to get all posh but… fancy hotels? Not so bad.”

He wraps one arm around her, pulling her closer, and with his fingers pressed to her jaw he tips her head up so he can get a brief kiss.

“You deserve fancy,” he tells her.

He kinda means it, a little too much, and they’re supposed to be all flirty and light right now, Daisy groans and nuzzles Coulson’s cheek with her nose, no need to get all deep on me, Phil. She decides to strike back with levity and… well, with sex.

“You’d better make that call ordering breakfast now, mister,” she says, sliping one arm around his middle, under the rob. “Because later we won’t remember…”

Without tearing his eyes from her face Coulson reaches for the phone.


End file.
